MASAOKA SHIKI

   Masaoka Shiki, given name Tsunenori, was an author, poet, literary critic, essayist, and journalist from Ehime Prefecture. He briefly attended Tokyo Imperial University in 1890 but dropped out that same year and became a newspaper reporter. He worked as a war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, which aggravated his tuberculosis and eventually killed him. Masaoka is most renowned for his work in reforming haiku and tanka. During his short life, he set forth the structure and style of modern haiku and founded the haiku magazine Hototogisu (The Cuckoo). He composed many haiku and tanka and wrote criticism as well and is considered to be one of the four great masters of haiku. His illness influenced his poetry; such works as his essay Byosho rokushaku (1902; tr. My Six Foot World, 1971) deal with his convalescence. Masaoka also played baseball in his youth and was posthumously inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.

   See also ANTINATURALISM; ITO SACHIO; NAGATSUKA TAKASHI; NATSUME SOSEKI.